Grateful to find this site

[Older sister]

I have been primary emotional caretaker of my non diagnosed BPD sister for most of my adult life. She was misdiagnosed as bipolar, was suicidal (almost succeeded), been on msds, off meds, binge drinking, self mutilating, the whole nine yards. Once she found a live-in BF who was willing to take on that role, she no longer had to idealize me, and it has been a rough 3 years since. After realizing that she has BPD, I told her that I would not be frightened off my her anger, because she couldn't help it... .wanting to be the good sister who wouldn't abandon her in spite of her crazy behaviour.

After the last most recent incident where she exhibited paranoia and cutting rage, I have decided to cut off contact. I have to let go of the self image of saintly selflessness.  Her behaviour leaves me feeling emotionally debilitated. I have my own family and they need me to be emotionally intact.  She is sick, but I can't fix her.  I am grateful to read about your stories, as I no longer feel so alone in this mess. 

[Older sister]

After a very nasty drama involving my non diagnosed BPD sister and my family of origin, I mentioned the ordeal to a friend of mine, a practicing counsellor, who suggested that my sis might have BPD. After a bit of online research, I realized that this is what she has, though (mis)diagnosed as Bipolar I for years. Yesterday an innocuous facebook text conversation about her son's success in a new writing job went suddenly and horribly wrong. After several months of hard won relationship peace (and you know who did all of the work, compromising, supporting, encouraging, overlooking in THAT process... .), she paranoically misunderstood a comment and went into immediate vengeful-hatred mode.  I had been lulled into complacency, but the rude awakening made me realize that I have some work to do, in terms of self-care and self protection. 

I am glad to have found this board, for sanity's sake!

[Ziggiddy]

Hi Older Sister and 

Wow it sounds like you have had a rough time of it with your sister. it must have been painful for you to have to take the step of cutting off your contact with her. Symptoms of BPD are difficult to mitigate and cause a good deal of distress to those who are affected by the sufferer.

As you mention you cannot fix her but you can get support and help for yourself and work on producing some peace in your life. It seems to have been missing in large part.

Bipolar and BPD share common symptoms in some regards and it is not uncommon for the 2 to be confused.

You may find it worth your while to have a look over some of the material available in our excellent resource library to acquaint yourself further with what BPD is and how it affects those around ones who suffer from it. here is a link to one of the pages:

https://bpdfamily.com/pdfs/kreger.pdf

I hope you are able to find some useful information there.

Ziggiddy